Author: Lucinda

Rated t for teen

Disclaimer: all you recognize belongs to JKR.

Notes: spoilers for DH. a fragment that wouldn't stop pestering me.

Harry Potter followed his friend Ron up the narrow… he wasn't certain if he was climbing a tilted ladder or a very steep set of stairs. Stairs or ladder, he went upwards into darkness and into a room filled with hazy bluish gray smoke that had a strange scent. Partly fuzzy, partly like rotting flowers, and partly like the funny cigarettes that one of Dudley's friends had stolen once. It felt like the smoke was pressing down on him, smothering him. He coughed, fighting the urge to clean his glasses.

"So this is Divination…" Ron was looking around, moving towards the little round tables with puffy chairs and elaborate table cloths. Each one held a crystal ball in the center, with a pot of tea and two or three pale cups.

"Welcome all of you," the woman was tall and thin, draped in scarves and strings of beads, with huge thick glasses over her eyes. "It is so good to see all of you in the flesh, though I've seen you all with my Inner Eye before. All of you settle at a chair, there should be a cup for each of you. We will begin with the wonderful art of reading tea leaves, though they often hide their messages in symbols."

Ron moved to the table that seemed to be the closest to in a corner as you could get in a round tower, and Harry trailed along. Lavender and Parvati claimed a table near the Professor, and he could see other third years finding seats. Harry blinked when he realized that Hermione was there, sitting at a table with Neville Longbottom. He blinked again when he realized that while there were empty chairs, each student had a teacup in front of them. Not only that, but there were no teacups in front of empty chairs.

Maybe she did have some sort of Inner Eye… or maybe she' d just been given a class roster.

He could hear her making small talk as people settled into their seats, tucking book-bags out of the walkways and pouring cups of tea. She had a distracted sound to her voice, as if she was thinking of other things, or other places. At the same moment that Neville's cup slipped from his fingers to the floor, she commented, "Extra cups are in the cupboard by the mirror, do take one of the ones with the blue pattern."

"Blimey…" Ron whispered.

Harry blinked, feeling a bit impressed. Then again, this was the wizarding world. He had a teacher who could turn into a cat, and another who was a ghost, was it so hard to believe that another could glimpse the future? "She wanted us to start with reading tea leaves. I guess for that to happen, we need to drink some tea."

"Right," Ron nodded, pouring some of the greenish brew into his cup and some into Harry's cup. "D'you reckon there's something special in this tea?"

"No idea," Harry whispered. He took a sip, trying to sort out if the tea had a similar flavor to the smoke or if the haze was just making things taste funny. As he pondered that, he felt his eyes relaxing as light sparkled and danced in the crystal ball. Candles gave a completely different feel than electric lighting…

Ron lay sprawled on the floor of a dirty room, his leg bent at a funny angle. Professor Lupin was hugging a gaunt man in tattered robes with tangled dark hair and a scraggly beard. Hermione had backed into a corner, her wand in a white-knuckled grip.

Walking into the great hall for lunch, seeing half the school glaring at him, wearing badges that flashed between 'Potter Stinks" and "Support Cedric Diggory: the Real Hogwarts Champion." Ron was already at the table, his back turned to him as he talked to Seamus, gesturing with a chicken leg.

Watching a stunning blond girl in a swimsuit struggling to get out of the grasp of three robed wizards, her long hair dripping water as she reached towards the lake. Harry felt himself blushing as he noticed just how pretty the girl was, and how little her swimsuit covered.

He was in his bed back on Privet Drive. A woman in strange, leathery robes was smiling at him, her violet hair falling to her shoulders. A frightful old man with a peg leg was stomping around his room, muttering about 'constant vigilance' and 'blasted dark wizards'.

He was in a stone room the size of the Transfiguration classroom, watching as a crazy looking woman in black robes traded spells with the gaunt man that he'd seen Professor Lupin hugging, though he wasn't quite as thin and he'd had a haircut. The woman cast a stunner and he fell against a tattered curtain fluttering from a stone arch. He touched the curtain and vanished.

He stood in a tiny boat with Professor Dumbledore, looking over the side into an underground lake. The sight of a swollen hand floating under the water convinced him it wasn't the Hogwarts Lake. As the boat moved forward, he saw another body, this one with milky eyes facing them, jaws parted to show broken teeth and a tongue with water swollen ridges, as if it had been bitten.

He was following Professor Dumbledore down a spiral staircase. At the landing, Dumbledore stopped, his eyes somber s he cast the petrificus totalis on Harry and covered him with his invisibility cloak. Professor Snape and an older Draco Malfoy came around the corner, with Malfoy looking pale and nervous. Professor Dumbledore stared at them, his lips moving. Harry could make out 'Severus' and 'please' before Professor Snape cast a green curse at Professor Dumbledore, a nasty smile on his face as the Headmaster toppled to the floor. It reminded him of the green flash that was always accompanied by a high, cold laugh in his oldest nightmares.

He stood in the Forbidden Forest, a large wizard in black robes with a skull-like mask holding each arm. A tall, inhuman figure with loose robes glided towards him, somehow reminding Harry of both the Dementors and the Basilisk, but worse. He'd seen the face once before, in the back of Professor Quirrell's head. Voldemort. The evil wizard raised his wand towards Harry, a cruel smirk on his face.

Pain stabbed at Harry, much worse than the time he'd fought Professor Quirrell for the Philosopher's Stone. It felt as if his skull was being divided, and he gasped for air. He felt like he was choking on the smoke, he couldn't breathe...

"Harry!" Ron was pounding on his back, teacup dropped on the tabletop.

He managed to suck in a little air, and tried to wave Ron back. "It's… I'm not choking."

"Are you okay?"Ron asked. "Did the tea go down wrong?"

Harry tried not to move his head, which still hurt. He didn't understand the flashes of things that he'd seen, and he wasn't sure he'd want to. "It wasn't the tea."

What was in this smoke anyhow? He blinked, deciding not to shake his head for fear that it would fall apart. "I'm… What does your cup say?"

Ron just gave him an odd look, as if he'd said something completely absurd. "Harry?"

end fragment: Unfogging the Future